Baños is south of Quito. I had a week of vacation off from school. What a strange place to find in Ecuador. Baños is full of bright colors, the clothes, the signs, the painted walls of the buildings. Many of the shops and restaurants are owned by non Ecuadorians. Therefore you can find just about any kind of food. Baños is famous for it's bath houses which I visited like a dedicated tourist. Also for a ritual that will clean out the toxins in your body, so they say. First they put you in a hot box for 4 minutes with only your head sticking out. Then you do a series of washing off in cold water and returning to the box for another 4 minutes. This process repeats about 4 times. I don't know if my body was rid of any toxins, but by the end of the day I was sick.
My hostal was a hopping place. There were people from everywhere. I hung out with a woman a bit older than me who is from Germany, Claudia and a kid about 20, Daniel from French Canada. Together we hiked up to a view point of the volcano that just a few weeks before was on the verge of exploding. We had an adventureous hike up finding different trucks to hitch a ride. On the way down our luck was high. Just as we hit the main rode going down, a bus came by. For 50 cents we saved ourselves a 3 hour hike back to town. Later in the week, the 3 of us took a bike ride west on the tour of waterfalls. There are a few cable cars that carry you across to the other side of a raging river so you can get a better view of the waterfall. It was a rather trusting experience. Daniels facial expressions were priceless each time we dared ourselves across on a cable car. The last a final waterfall on our ride was the best, Diablo. After a 20 minute hike down, the path led us to a wooden suspension bridge that offered the best views. There was a sign posted at the entrance of the bridge that no more then 5 people should be on the bridge at one time. This is one of the reasons I love these countries. This bridge in the US would simply not exist. During our hike down, we passed a woman who had one leg and from a different group a man with one arm. We were begining to wonder about our trip. On the other side of the bridge was a treehouse looking cafe' and hostal. They served some of the best pasties I have ever had. WE all had seconds. We hiked back out and hitched a ride back to town on the "pick up trucks" that hang around for those bikers that don't want to bike the 18 km back to Baños, up hill. In the evenings we either played cards and drinking games with a huge group of fellow travelers or caught up on our old movies. Claudia and I spent the better part of one day hanging out on some over stuffed sofas in a coffeeshop. It was a nice relaxing trip.
